The dreaded 2WW!

So, I'm halfway through the 2ww, so there's nothing really interesting to report. According to FF we timed everything perfectly, so we shall see.

One thing interesting happened this weekend was when I was chatting with a friend. She was a nurse practitioner in women's health at a major university hospital in the US. I told her what I was doing and she said to save my money on the OPKs. Since I'm temping and have an idea when I ovulate (usually CD14, but anytime from CD13 to CD17) that we should have sex every other day between CD10 through CD20. This was the advice they would give to the women that would come to their clinic. I figure we'll give this a go if this 2ww results in a negative!

The Waiting Game

Where did the month go!??!

AF did show up just a couple of days after I last posted, putting my cycles about 30 days long....if I stay 'regular' this month.

So where does that leave us??

Smack dab in the middle of the TWW.

And thankfully, I've been able to stay busy most of the last two weeks, so it hasn't been on my mind much.

Until yesterday...It's constantly on my mind.

Did we BD enough? Did I get my fertile days right? Was there anything else I could do?

Makes me want to scream!! :0)

The "To-Do" List

A while back my DH and I saw a commercial for a new sitcom about married couples. I can't recall now what the show was called but a one-liner stood out to me for obvious reasons. The wife said to her husband, "Do you feel as though the romance has sort of vanished now that we have to add sex to our to-do list?"

Does anyone else feel this way? I totally relate to this character every month when our week of "hopeful baby-making" comes. Both calendars in our house have this week marked in different colors to show which days are more important that we stay awake long enough to try. It's not at all about showing each other love and affection anymore but rather about making sure that we are giving it our best shot for the month!

I think we are both a little relieved when the week has passed, the pressure's off and neither one of us have to worry about being in the mood or not. We can do what we married couples do, watch sitcoms and go to bed early!

The Great BD Opinion Poll

Today is day 10 of my cycle. I took the last of my clomid pills yesterday. We're getting ready for the big show this month and I need a little help from all you ladies out there with experience (and success) ttc.

My husband and I have been trying to figure out, should we BD every day during our window, or every other day? I have heard backing for both sides, and I wanted to know what worked for you. We have generally done the every day thing, because thankfully I'm "in the mood" from day 9 until day 20 or so. We give it every shot we can (pun intended) but obviously thus far we haven't had success (except many years ago when we conceived our little girl, but I really can't remember what we did back then).



So...in the comments section of this post, please give your opinion: every day, or every other day?

My monitor and me

My CBFM arrived in time for me to use it for this cycle. In order to use the CBFM you have to have entered the start of your period and current cycle day by CD5 so that on CD6 it can ask you for your first test stick. Pretty cool actually. All I have to do in the morning is turn my monitor on and see if it asks me for a new test stick. On CD6 I turned it on, it showed me the picture of the test stick, and I knew it was time to take action! I love POASing, so this part was lots of fun. I dipped the stick in my pee cup (cause I think it´s way to hard to aim and hit the stick without getting myself or the rest of the stick wet), put the cap over the wet end and inserted it in my monitor. Then I waited about five minutes while my monitor flashed that it was busy reading the stick. After the five minutes were up, the monitor said it was time to remove the stick. I removed the stick and immeidately saw my result: low fertility = one bar. Not surprising, really. CD6 would be really early, so I wasn´t worried. I repeated the procedure on CD 7, CD8 and CD9 with the same result: one bar=low fertility.

This morning, however, I got two bars, or high fertility, which means now is a good time to start BDing. I can hardly wait, and I´m sure Mr. Lillysaur will be even happier.

Here are some photos which aren´t in the right order because I can´t get blogspot to let me move them around in the post for some reason.

This is what the test stick looks like if you hold it up to light. The result window is transparent so that the light from the monitor can "read" the results.The darker line is actually the line for estrogen, and the lighter one which you can´t see too well is the line that detects LH.

This is what a high fertility reading looks like! (I´m very excited, can you tell?!)

This is one of the test sticks. The left side is actually the pee strip, but it´s covered with the cap.

The monitor while it´s reading the results, the test stick picture actually flashes to tell you it´s still reading.

And here the monitor is between the flashing.

All in all, I´m excited about the monitor. I´ll let you know more about it when I´ve had more time to use it. But sofar, it seems like it´s been a good investment.

Confession

When I very first became pregnant, women told me to enjoy our sex life while I could, before the morning sickness struck. When the nausea hit, the same women told me to look forward to the second trimester, which apparently was full of hot sex, especially because a lot of them seemed to feel amazingly confident and sexy with their new pregnant body.

So here's my confession: I'm 16 weeks pregnant, and I don't feel sexy. At all. Not even a little bit.

I'm sure my ridiculous allergies don't help, but it's more than that. I don't feel confident or empowered. I feel fat. I feel bloated. I feel unsure and incredibly self-conscious of how my body looks. I'm hyperaware of how heavy and low my breasts have gotten - they're not the perky girls I used to be secretly proud of (because seriously, I had a FAB rack). I feel strangely off balance with a bump that now extends out well beyond my bust line, and immensely self-conscious about how it sticks out. I see the stretch lines forming on my stomach (yes, already!) and the last thing I want to do is let someone else check them out at close view.

This is, to say the least, extremely unusual for me. I've always enjoyed myself in the bedroom, and I don't know what to do with these new feelings. Mr Bibliosaur has been fantastic - very sweet and encouraging, always telling me that he still thinks I look sexy and beautiful. But I don't feel sexy and beautiful, and that makes it hard for me to get in the mood. I won't estimate the number of times we've gotten it on since I became pregnant, but I think there's a distinct possibility that it could be easily counted on two hands.

So I know this is all very TMI, but does anyone have any tips? Wearing lingerie doesn't do anything for me, and I've never been one to set the mood with candles and music, etc. (I secretly find those things super cheesy and certainly not a turn on). Is there anyone else out there who just didn't feel sexy when they were pregnant? How do I get my confidence back?

P.S. Don't you love these books? I still find it hilarious that there's a market for romance novels about knocked up women.

Keeping Myself Busy

Last week, I posted a funny list of things to do during your 2WW. But now, I'm going to post what I've actually been doing during my 2WW.

• Cleaned the entire house top to bottom.
• Ate an entire pineapple.
• Bought 2 new workout dvds.
• Done one of my new workout dvds every day.
• Took long walks.
• Baked some fabulous pumpkin bread, one of my specialties.
• Made a batch of sugar cookies.
• Made and decorated my nephew's birthday cake.
• Did my best to draw a picture of a robot for my nephew's birthday.
• Wrapped birthday presents.
• Bought a few small Christmas presents.
• Searched for the best Chicken Pot Pie recipe.
• Made Mr. Joggersaur all his favorite meals.
• Taken my pre-natal vitamin almost every day.
• Tried to sleep, but I can't.
• Had a weird pain in my butt... litterally.
• Enrolled my hubby and I in new health care benefits.
• Created our office Christmas Party invites.
• Started putting together a cookie exchange for our office.
• Carved a pumpkin.
• Created a Facebook page for Mr. Joggersaur's new business.
• Caught up on all my favorite shows on hulu.
• BD because we wanted to... in the middle of the day.
• Drew house plans for our dream house... in excel.
• Tried not to analyze every little twinge in my body.
• Fixed my hair different ways.
• Spent a day on a pallet watching movies with Mr. Joggersaur.
• Painted my nails orange.
• Made goodie bags for my nephew's birthday party.

What do you do to keep yourself busy during your 2WW??

The Last Box

One night in August, on the way home from a weekend away, I reminded my hubby if he was planning on BD, he would need to buy the 'last box' we had discussed last week.

He got a big grin on his face, and was like, "Does that mean you want to BD?"

I refused to answer with a grin on my face, and just repeated my statement.

He non chalantly changed lanes so we could exit and go to the drug store.

I was so anxious. This was it. I was giddy in fact.

I waited in the car while he went in to make his purchase.

And what does he come out with?

THE BIGGEST BOX OF CONDOMS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE!

I just started to cry.

He was laughing.

Seriously?

He didn't get it!!

And I started to explain that HIS friend would be staying with us in our TINY apartment, and then AF was scheduled for the following week, so that's THREE weeks in Sept, that took away from baby making and that the box would last until CHRISTMAS!

Then, I was like, "You don't want to have a baby do you?"

Fortunately I was able to calm down pretty quickly and talk rationally.

He was like, "Like I went in thinking of how many times in September I WASN'T going to get it. I wasn't about to go in and buy a three pack, I'd look like I never get it."

And then he pointed out, we had planned to wait six months after we got married (Sept 28), and he was just trying to make it to then like we had agreed, and he only made the box deal so that we wouldn't worry about a specific date.

Oh.

Then, he proceeds to tell me that maybe HE wanted to do a special farewell come time.

Dang it. I married one of those guys that knows what a big deal this is and wants to make it special.

That makes me feel a little better.

Cycle 2 - "Action" Plan

I am now on Cycle Day 7. We've got our action plan for TTC ready to go.

Tomorrow, I start using the digital ovulation predictor tests. I plan to use them at around 5:30 p.m. each evening when I get home from work. My cycle is usually 25 days long and the instructions suggested starting on CD 8. I used to suspect that I ovulated around CD 9 due to changes in my cervical mucous and my increased libido. Now, I may actually find out if that is really true! The test sensitivity is 40 mIU/mL so if my surge doesn't get to that level, it will not be detected by the OPK. (Thanks to Bibliosaur for bringing that to my attention.) I think the biggest challenge for me while using the test will be not to pee for 4 hours beforehand. I tend to drink a lot of water!

Once I see this:

source

then that day and the next will be our best chances at conceiving. We plan on having sex every 2 to 3 days from now until about CD20 (or at least until I get my positive OPK.) I have seen some women posting their experience with having sex every 12 hours once they have a positive OPK. Several have them have ended up with a BFP. That could be worth a try!

I am superstitious about putting a pillow under my hips and staying lying down for about 20 minutes after TTC sex. It worked for us when we tried in May. I am hoping it works again.

So, we have a plan. Now the trick is to relax, keep it simple and take it one day at a time.

Lights, camera (no, not really) and ACTION!

source

Getting it on for the first time

Today was the first time since I got the BFP that we've had sex. Actually, now that I think about it, it's the first time we've done it since I ovulated. There was no reason that we held off between my O-date and the BFP, but there was after I got that first (yes, first - I'll post about the rest later) positive pregnancy test. And it's all due to me.

When I miscarried, it happened the day after we had sex for the first time following my BFP. We weren't getting it on very much because I felt so exhausted - my sex drive was nonexistent - so it was a pretty good day when we finally did the deed. And then I miscarried.

Now, I know that the two things had nothing to do with each other. I absolutely, positively, 100% know that sex didn't cause the miscarriage. Whatever went wrong had already happened before that night. But it still left me feeling frightened and wary this time around; even though I intellectually understood that sex would not cause a miscarriage, emotionally I was far less secure. It was irrational and I knew that, but I couldn't help it. And since I've read that some pregnant women spot after sex, I was even more nervous - even if the spotting was harmless, seeing that blood would have freaked me out.

Mr Bibliosaur was very supporting, encouraging me to take all the time I needed to feel confident enough to give it a try. So today, after sleeping in for a loooooong time (it's amazing how much the fatigue wipes your libido!), I told him I was ready. And it was fine! We went slow and there wasn't any spotting, so I'm feeling far more confident about getting it on in the future.

People keep telling me to enjoy the first trimester sex now, before the morning sickness hits - but honestly, I'm having a hard time getting in the mood because I'm just so tired all the time. Am I alone in this? Is everyone else getting it on all the time in the first month or two? I miss having regular sex, but how do you get past the fatigue?

"Are you Ovulating or Something?"

This is what Mr. Bakersaur asked me yesterday. Since I don't chart or temp, I have to guess and my best guess would be this week or next week. So that is 2 weeks of FWP!! As a result of me now jumping on Mr. Bakersaur every chance I get, he finally asked... "Are you ovulating or something?" I couldn't help but laugh!
He decided a long time ago that he wanted absolutely no knowledge of how that whole process worked. Since then, he's gotten a general idea, but he mostly just doesn't want to know when I'm ovulating. He doesn't want to feel pressured :-) He usually stays pretty clueless...but this month he seemed to catch on pretty fast so I had to confess.

I don't mind him not wanting to know. Actually it makes it easier for me too because it takes a lot of the pressure off of me too. We both want this baby so bad. And after the miscarriage, we only want it more. We both tend to a lot of pressure on ourselves and I know it's not helping anything so we've made it our mission this week to quit stressing about it and just let it happen.

One quarter of the way there!

Today I am officially 10 weeks. That's right, one quarter of the way there! This is HUGELY exciting for me. Double digits people, I'm pumped.

I'm going based on how far along our ultrasounds said we were, not my due date based on the date of my last menstrual period. If I went with my LMP, I'd still be in the 9th week. But it sounds so much better to me to be in the 10th week, so here I am.

Here's a little excerpt from Babycenter about what the 10th week brings:

Though he's barely the size of a kumquat — a little over an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, your baby has now completed the most critical portion of his development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in his body rapidly grow and mature.

He's swallowing fluid and kicking up a storm. Vital organs — including his kidneys, intestines, brain, and liver (now making red blood cells in place of the disappearing yolk sac) — are in place and starting to function, though they'll continue to develop throughout your pregnancy.

If you could take a peek inside your womb, you'd spot minute details, like tiny nails forming on fingers and toes (no more webbing) and peach-fuzz hair beginning to grow on tender skin.

In other developments: Your baby's limbs can bend now. His hands are flexed at the wrist and meet over his heart, and his feet may be long enough to meet in front of his body. The outline of his spine is clearly visible through translucent skin, and spinal nerves are beginning to stretch out from his spinal cord. Your baby's forehead temporarily bulges with his developing brain and sits very high on his head, which measures half the length of his body. From crown to rump, he's about 1 1/4 inches long. In the coming weeks, your baby will again double in size — to nearly 3 inches.

OMG, it feels so surreal to think that there's this little being inside of me, who's dancing and swallowing and has fuzzy hair already!

Overall, I'm feeling fairly good. My pregnancy to this point has not been terribly hard, but it hasn't really been a bed of roses either. Maybe roses with some thorns. *lol*

My all-day sickness (I refuse to call it morning sickness, because it really is with me all frickin' day!) is pretty much constantly present. The only time I don't feel ill is, surprisingly, when I first get up in the morning. I'm able to eat my oatmeal or cereal without any problem, and even down a glass of orange-peach-mango juice (LOVE IT!). But after eating, I feel nauseated and it sticks with me.

The worst time of day for me for my all-day sickness is late afternoon and into the evening. I pretty much cannot eat anything for dinner, because my food aversions make it impossible for me even think about food without gagging or vomiting. So, I just try to eat more of my food earlier in the day, and eat pretty lightly or not at all in the evening. The one thing I seem to be able to have all the time without being sick is ginger ale. But it has to be Canada Dry brand. Schweppes makes me SICK! Odd, huh?

I am finding the fatigue comes and goes now. Some evenings I can stay up until 10 pm with a few yawns. Other days, I am in bed at 8pm and still not ready to get up for work in the morning. But I'm having really fatigued days only about half of the time, compared to every single day a couple of weeks ago.

Since our BFP and especially more after our bleeding scare that ended us up in the ER, Mr. Legalosaur and I have not been interested in having marital relations due to fear that we could cause a miscarriage. Of course, we wanted to several times, but the fear always held us back. However, last night we took the plunge for the first time since getting our BFP and had sex. I have missed that closeness with him. And, so far, there's been no bleeding or spotting and I'm so glad for that. We were very gentle and I think that must have helped. I hope that this will become more regular for the rest of this pregnancy.

And, finally, I have allowed myself to do some SHOPPING for the baby! I figure I held off shopping with our last pregnancy for fear of jinxing it, and that didn't really help since we miscarried anyways. So this time I've been keeping my eyeballs peeled for good deals and I've been taking the plunge. So far I've bought some clothes, a nursing pillow, a sleep sack, a pearl-white knitted blanket, a bathtime baby support, 10 cloth diapers aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand (the biggest purchase and the one I'm most excited about!!) a gently used Phil & Ted's Vibe stroller with the doubles kit for 50% off retail from Kijiji!

Image credits.

And despite my feeling more upbeat about this pregnancy these days and starting to get excited, I still don't feel like sharing so I haven't told anyone else that we're expecting. My parents and sister still don't know, but I still just don't feel like it's the right time to tell them, not yet...

So, that's it for me and my update! I have a doctors appointment next Monday - it's my first prenatal appointment at 11 weeks and 2 days. Let's hope the Doppler works for us!

Two things

First, I'd like to take a moment to be a big ole attention whore about our F*k With Purpose efforts this cycle:

How's THAT for some superstardom in the sack, eh? Ahem. Sorry for scarring you. I'm just proud of the big effort we made this time around! We weren't taking ANY risks about catching that egg!

Second, I just realized something. Because my ovulation date keeps moving up, it's making my cycles shorter - even with a 14 day luteal phase, I'm still only looking at a 26 day cycle this time around; remember it's the length of time before ovulation that varies - the luteal phase stays pretty much the same, so counting down to the day Aunt Flo is due to arrive is quite accurate.

Anyway, I know this is probably boring as hell, but the point is this: when I started this cycle, I vaguely assumed my testing date would be around June 12 or so. But because I ovulated on CD12 (yes CD12 and I don't care what you say, Fertility Friend!) instead of my original, longer dates of CD16-17, that means my testing date has moved up as well, to June 7!

I know it's obvious, but this has totally stunned me, since I wasn't even thinking of testing until a week later. It seems so close now! Eeek!

Bring on the FWP!

Look! Look at what I just got!

That's a positive OPK, folks! I know it's just an ovulation test and not a BFP or anything else to get excited over, but after the debacle that was OPK testing last cycle, I was ridiculously happy to see that little smiley face!

I'm also incredibly glad that I decided to start OPK testing a day before I thought I really needed to, because otherwise I probably would have missed this completely. My temps were dropping suspiciously (I'm one of those women who gets a dip right before ovulation), so I thought I'd go ahead and waste a test, fully expecting it to be negative until at least tomorrow or the next day. But voila! Positive!

Since I seem to have a short LH surge, this means I will probably ovulate either tomorrow (CD11) or the next day (CD12), which then means my ovulation day will have moved up yet again - interesting, to say the least.

It also means that my grand plans for another entire week of FWP-ing have yet again been brought to a grinding halt, since my seven day gettin' busy plan for this cycle was scheduled to start tomorrow in order to cover all potential fertile days based on my past ovulation dates. Good thing we've already been working on an every-other-day schedule since Aunt Flo left town, eh? And now, how about one more look at that cheerful little face:

I love you, little smiley face!

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go do a couple more victory laps around the house. Woohooooooooo!!!

So, about that week of getting busy...

Remember my last post? The one where I vowed that Mr Bibliosaur and I would get it on for seven days straight? Yeah...that didn't happen. But it's not for the reason you think (I'm betting you're thinking exhaustion, haha!). Instead, it's because I had a surprise ovulation.

And when I say surprise, I mean SURPRISE. I know that ovulation dates can vary, but I'm a rock solid CD16 kind of girl. I could have shrugged at CD15, and I wouldn't have even blinked at CD17...but CD13?

Yup. CD13. 100%. Absolutely. Without a doubt.

You might wonder why my crosshairs are dotted instead of the usual solid red line. Fertility Friend does this when your ovulation signs conflict - in my case, everything points to ovulation except for the negative OPKs. But even those have a good explanation.

If you look at the OPK tests on my BFP chart, I only had one day of positives; two days seems to be more common, judging by Fertility Friend charts. This makes me think that I probably just have a short LH surge; in this case, it might have simply lasted less than 24 hours, which isn't unheard of - I googled it this morning and came up with a ton of examples of this, and one that was even less than 21 hours. So if this cycle isn't successful, I think that next month I'm going to use the OPKs twice a day (morning and evening) and see if that catches the surge. Just out of curiosity.

I have to say, I'm glad we decided to start getting busy waaaay before I thought we'd actually need to - if I trusted my CD16 average and waited until CD14 or so to start, we'd have missed our chance completely! As it is, our timing wasn't bad - we only missed one day in the critical five day window.

So now it's on to the dreaded two week wait...wish me luck!

It's time to get busy

Before you go any further: I'm going to be oversharing a bit in this post, so if you don't want to read about my sex life, now's the time to step away.

Still here?

OK. You've been warned.

This is it. The week. O-week. I'm moseying along right on schedule to hit the big O sometime in the next seven days, probably on Friday. Which means this week is going to be rather busy.

Yup! That kind of busy.

Mr Bibliosaur and I have decided to go all out this week, getting busy once a day for the entire seven days surrounding my estimated ovulation date. Which might not seem like a lot to some people, but pretty much doubles our weekly average, practically making this a nookie marathon.

But the thing is - we really want a baby. While getting it on for a solid week won't guarantee that, we're doing everything we can to maximize our chances.

And OK - maybe it won't quite be like the covers of all those romance novels. I don't want to use the word "chore," but let's be honest - sometimes the prospect non-spontaneous baby-making sex isn't always the most exciting thing in the world. Sometimes you're tired. Sometimes you're cranky. Sometimes you're just flat out not in the mood, and you have to decide whether or not you'd rather sleep or try to get knocked up this cycle.

All of this said, we're going to try to keep things as fun and pressure free as possible, and hopefully won't be too exhausted by the end of the week. Wish us luck!

P.S. I find it simultaneously hilarious and awesome that Harlequin has a set of romance novels that revolve around getting pregnant. I never realized there was a market for that.

Back in the saddle

Well, Mr Bibliosaur and I are back from our vacation, and I have to say it was exactly what we needed. Time for ourselves, time to relax, time away from everything - all the stresses, all the emotions, time to heal. It was also a pressure-free chance to get...reacquainted...with each other.

Image source

Legalosaur wrote a post last month about having sex for the first time after a miscarriage. For me, it was simultaneously one of the best and worst moments during this healing time. Best because it reaffirmed our bond, that closeness and trust you feel with someone you love. Worst because I was so full of conflicting emotions - it drove home the knowledge of what we had lost. I was fine up until about 2 seconds after we finished, and then I burst into tears; I'm glad that first time was when we were still at home, in familiar surroundings - while getting away was great, sometimes home is better.

T0 make matters more complicated, when you have sex after a miscarriage, you need to use birth control. This is for a variety of reasons, from preventing infection (the cervix and uterus are more susceptible than usual) to preventing immediate pregnancy; not only will your body probably not be ready for a baby again so soon, but if the pregnancy sticks it can also make initial dating difficult since there won't be a clear cycle to count from. Condoms are the obvious method of control, since you want to avoid anything hormone-based if you plan on trying again in the near future.

You might laugh, but buying condoms was salt in the wound for me. Since I used one of the most effective birth control methods around, we didn't need them to prevent pregnancy and never worried about a backup method, meaning that it's literally been years since either of us purchased them. I didn't even know what brand to buy. I just stood there in the store, staring at the selection and making passerby think I was weird. So obviously, using them has taken some adjustment as well.

I'm happy to say that since that first time, things have smoothed out. Just like every other part of dealing with a miscarriage, you just have to take it day by day, and eventually things get better. I'm not going to lie - it was difficult at first, and I'll be glad when we can ditch the condoms, but for now I just feel happy to experience the closeness of that bond with my husband again and enjoy the intimacy.

Solid Crosshairs

Yay! I was worried because I had to temp 30 minutes earlier than my normal time because our menace of a cat decided to wake me up. And taking temps earlier or later than your normal time can screw up your chart. I just entered today's temperature on Fertility Friend and even though there's an open circle indicating that the time was not inline with my "normal" time, I still got nice solid, red crosshairs confirming what I really felt was O day, CD17.

image source

I don't know if it's because this is cycle three of charting and I am starting to really be in tune with my body and get the hang of it or if my ovulation this time around was just way more obvious, but I swear, I actually felt the moment the egg was released. It was like a deep, twisting pinch, low on my ride side, in the triangle between my hip bone, pubic bone and belly button. I was at my desk and it took my breath away for a moment. That was at a little before 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday and by 4:30 p.m. DH and I were down to business!

What's great about today is that I am pretty confident that I am at DPO3. This means that our FWP timing was as ideal as it can get, with sessions on each of the two days preceding O, twice on O day and once on the day after. There is a rule of thought that you should skip DPO2 and be sure to do it one more time on DPO3, so that's what we'll do. Not sure if this is more psychological or what, but it's what I have read on the sperm meets egg plan.

So I continue to wait with a better picture of what the next 10-12 days will be. In the past my temps have dropped considerably by DPO11, signaling that AF was on the way. If my temps stay up closer to next weekend, I will feel hopeful and test on Easter morning. Now all I can do is pray that there's a little zygote on its way to becoming baby Divasaur.

For the very first time...

Last night, my husband and I had sex for the first time.... We’ve been married for over two and a half years.

Without more, that first line seems a little funny, doesn’t it? I guess what I forgot to mention is the next part... that we had sex for the first time after our miscarriage.

Ah, that makes a world of difference, those three little italicized words do.

Miscarriage. How I have learned to hate the word. Like I did something wrong, like I failed to carry our baby properly somehow. Sadly, miscarriage is often nobody’s fault, and often it’s impossible to tell why you miscarried at all. But it happens so very often, it’s actually amazing that more women don’t talk about it.

After getting our BFP, we were elated. And after only a month of trying! How LUCKY we were. I had the usual symptoms, like nausea, fatigue, backache, round ligament pain... one symptom that really surprised me was thirst. I could not believe how thirsty I was!

It was all too simple, or too easy, or something. Of course, like most women, I worried. I worried about our baby and whether everything was okay. If the symptoms went away for an hour, I waited on tenterhooks until they returned. Who knew you could be so happy about nausea?

I had discussed the chance of miscarriage with our doctor. She had told me that approximately 20% of first pregnancies end up in miscarriage. Of course, she stressed that 80% of the time, everything is fine. I tried to focus on the 80%. My husband and I whispered to one another, “How many of those 20% are like us, people who want their baby and do everything right?” We convinced ourselves everything would be okay.

As we neared 12 weeks, we got more and more excited. We fell deeper and deeper in love with our baby. We stopped worrying and started enjoying the idea of 10 fingers and 10 perfect little toes. I even went onesie shopping.

And then our world crashed in around us. I started spotting lightly the day after going onesie shopping. Three days later, it hadn’t stopped. I got worried. So I made an appointment with my doctor.

She couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat with the Doppler, but she wasn’t surprised since my uterus was so retroverted. She told me my uterus felt like an appropriate size, and that the type of spotting I was having was very normal. Despite my doctor assuring me everything was likely okay, I somehow just knew somewhere inside of me that it wasn’t.

To ease my fears, she sent us for an ultrasound. March 5, 2009. The most confusing and painful day of my life. The day we found out that our baby died.

And so, yesterday, my husband and I had sex for the first time after our miscarriage. And while it was perfect and beautiful, my body shook with sobs after the deed was done. I was overcome with so many emotions, it’s practically impossible to put them all into words.

As he has done so often this month, my husband held me while I cried, and told me that he loved me. It’s all he can do right now.

Waiting to O

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CD 16 is here! I am slated to O between CD17 and CD22 and the positive OPK this afternoon points towards tomorrow. So does my EWCM. I have heard that the 2WW is the worst ever, but I swear waiting to O is right up there. And my CBEFM continues to just give High readings, I wonder if/when it will show peak. Which is why I used one of the OPK strips I had left from last cycle. It was certainly positive, so I am hoping that the CBEFM shows a Peak tomorrow, otherwise I am not sure that it's working properly for me. Of course it's the first cycle using it and it does "learn" ones cycle over time, but I have been surprised that I have have 10 days of High readings, no Lows or Peaks. Whatever the case, all signs are pointing to O so now it's time to get down to business for real.

DH is hilarious and is ready to go...I told him I thought I would O tomorrow or the next day and he started doing jumping jacks and stretching like he was about to run a race. Too funny. Here's hoping this wait ends and the 2WW begins and come Easter time I'll get to POAS and get a BFP! That would so be worth the wait.